Chapter 24
“Mama, where is papà?”
Francesca stands and stares into the crater outside the house, a crater as deep as their house is tall and considerably wider. Up and down the beach, barges lie upturned, some broken in two and others smashed to smithereens. German soldiers are working doggedly to clear the wreckage, shovelling, stacking, hauling. The house of their neighbours, the elderly couple Francesca had visited on Thursday evening, is now no more than an empty, smoking shell.
“He has gone to see the Tenente at Capo Peloro.” And immediately she has told Mira, Francesca lifts her hand to her face and bites at her knuckles. “He was in the strangest of moods.”
“In what way strange, mama?”
“Well, this morning before he left, he hugged me in a way he has not hugged me for some years. Do you think he is all right?”
“Mama, after a night like that, when none of us thought we would ever wake again, I am not surprised.”
“Yes, Mira. Yet he also kissed me in a way he hasn’t kissed me for a long, long time. There was an urgency to him and he looked at me the way your brother looked at me that morning he left on the ferry. And when I said I hoped he would come back and fill this hole up before someone came along and fell into it, he just looked at me.” She turns away from the crater. “Men can be so strange.”
Mira gazes out across the Strait. Clouds of lamb’s wool grace the peaks of Aspromonte, and Villa San Giovanni and Reggio appear calm and unmolested. A warm glow of satisfaction emanates from her stomach and quickens through her limbs.
Then it comes to her: her mother chewing at her knuckles. Something is wrong. She rushes over and grasping her mother’s arm, Mira turns her round. “Mama, exactly what did papà say.” She stares into her mother’s eyes. “Exactly what, mama, come, tell me.”
“Why, Mira, whatever is the matter?”
“What did he say, mama? Please, tell me, exactly.”
“He said I was not to tell you he was going to see the Tenente. Oh, I am such a fool.”
“No, mama, you are not a fool; you just hide your intelligence behind a mask of foolishness. What else did he say? Did he say why he was going?”
Francesca studies her feet, as though by not looking at her daughter she cannot be found guilty of repeating words she has been told not to. “He said I was to take care of you and Nicholas, and that he might be gone a while. He used to say this sort of thing to me whenever he took his boat out in rough waters. Oh, whatever is he up to now?”
Mira breathes deep and calms herself, softening her grip on her mother’s shoulders. “Mama, I think I know what he is up to and I have to stop him. Stay here. Do not leave Nicholas alone. Please, mama, will you do this for me?”
Francesca’s eyes begin to tear. “But that’s what he said, that I was to stay here and take care of you and Nicholas. Well, who’s going to take care of me?”
“Nicholas.”
“A blind man?”
“Better a blind man who can see no wrong, mama.” She kisses her mother’s cheek and hurries back into the house.
“I am going out,” she says to Nicholas, as she bends to kiss him on his lips.
“Where? For how long?”
“Oh, not you too,” she mutters. “Nicholas… last night… it was…”
He smiles, and perhaps his smile is all the brighter, all the more natural and uninhibited because he cannot see the effect it has on her. “Yes, it was, wasn’t it?”
“Look after mama,” she says, kissing him again, just as she’d kissed him during the night. “Be a good man, Nicholas.”
She strides out along the road beside the lagoon, like a woman dashing home to draw in the laundry before it rains, and every few yards she breaks into a run.
The nearer she comes to the Piazza di Chiesa and her café, the more numerous become the craters. Houses stand hauntingly vacant, gaping holes in roofs from which wisps of smoke drift in the morning air. Here and there, people wander aimlessly or stoop to right chairs and tables and pick through what is left of their possessions. On the far side of the lagoon, teams of labourers and soldiers fill in the craters on the main road as military ambulances wail and weave between them.
The road up to Torre Faro bends right, back towards the Strait and then up alongside the shore.
At the battery in the square, the German artillerymen are lying in the sun: most are stripped to their waists, some sleep, some lounge and others wander about chatting.
Mira picks out a tall, blond–haired, muscular soldier who sits separate from the others cleaning his rifle.
“Excuse me,” she says, “is there an officer I can speak to?”
The gunner looks up, nonplussed.
“An officer,” Mira says slowly and loudly. “Officer?”
He points over at her café.
She sees the door is open and, annoyed that her café has been requisitioned, walks over.
Inside, two men sit talking, their collars unbuttoned, their feet up on chairs.
“You are officers?”
They glance at each other.
“Officer, yes. I am Oberleutnant Becker,” he replies in halting Italian. “What can I do for you, miss…”
“Your captain. The captain who was here last week.”
“The captain? We have many captains.” He grins, looking her up and down.
“The captain who conducted the search last Wednesday, I would like to speak to him.”
Oberleutnant Becker plays dumb for a while, feasting his eyes.
Mira’s impatience gets the better of her and she stamps her foot. “The captain. Your captain. Where is he? I demand to speak to him: I have information regarding the Italian soldier who was murdered. Information. Intelligence,” she says, slowly.
Recognising the word, he mutters to the man next to him, nods in her direction and then towards the door. The second man gets to his feet and makes off at a gentle trot.
When Mira turns to go outside however, the Oberleutnant gets up and bars her way.
“You wait,” he says in an uncompromising tone. “Sit.”
Mira does as she is invited to, holding her back straight in an effort to impress on the officer that her visit is strictly business. She looks around her café. The gunners have brought their own fake coffee, and tins of processed meat lie open attracting flies. She scowls and rolls her eyes.
A minute or so later, the German captain enters and stands over her, expressionless. “What do you want?”
She stands, raises her head defiantly and looks him directly in the eye: “My name is Mira Alberti and I killed the Italian soldier at the battery.”
*
Mira is shoved into the back of a square–looking, open–top vehicle, the doors of which open against each other and the seats of which are hard, although probably not as hard as the square jaw of the soldier who climbs in beside her. Ignoring the view across the Strait, the captain sits erect in the front as they drive the short distance up through the village towards Capo Peloro.
Convoys of vehicles, similar to those they had watched from the church steps driving towards the fighting in the west, now queue in the warren of narrow lanes around the beach, waiting for their turn to be evacuated. The captain stands, holds onto the windscreen and waves troops to stand aside, which they do, if not quite as quickly as he would like.
At the battery, a soldier lazes outside his sentry box, smoking. He stands, he stretches and then ambles over to raise the boom, not bothering to salute.
Forgetting his manners, the captain barks at the soldier beside Mira, who then pushes her roughly towards her door. Ignoring him, she stays sitting and waits for the driver to run around and open it: as she gets out, she glares at her guard, who then cocks his machine pistol and levels it at her.
“Come,” the captain orders, taking Mi
ra by her arm and hustling her towards the door to the fort.
Before they can get there, though, Lieutenant de la Grascia appears. He seats his cap at an angle, squares his shoulders, pulls down on his jacket hem and shrugs his cuffs. Behind him Enzo stands, frowning.
“Good morning, Hauptmann.” Aldo smiles, though not with any warmth. “How are you today?”
The German captain has no time for pleasantries. “This woman has confessed,” he states.
“Ah, that is very interesting, Hauptmann, because this man has also confessed.” Aldo shifts his attention to Mira, instantly dropping his light–hearted mien. “What the devil are you doing here? Didn’t you know your father was coming here?”
Mira grins, mischievously. “No, Tenente de la Grascia, he didn’t think to tell me or my mother; I wonder why.”
“You’d better come inside, but watch what you say, eh: this fellow,” he raises an eyebrow and inclines his head towards the German officer, “understands more than he lets on.”
Inside the fort, the Tenente’s command post, if one can call a room with a desk and chair a command post. The air is pleasingly cool and the light from the small windows pleasingly dim. He bids Mira sit down.
“Thank you, Tenente. How marvellous it is that Italian officers have managed to preserve their manners, while others…” She glares once again at her guard.
“Enough, Mira,” Aldo snaps.
Enzo takes a step towards her, which provokes her guard to turn his gun away from her and point it at him. He stops. “The Tenente is right, Mira, what are you doing here?”
“Oh, I’m doing what is right, papà. Please, Tenente de la Grascia, you seem to have one too many martyrs than you need. If I remember correctly, you told me you used to study sociology, which means you are more qualified than most to understand human behaviour. So, tell us, how do you intend to find out which one of us is lying?”
“Mira, this is not a game, and if you remember correctly, I told you that this situation is now beyond my control. Whichever one of you did murder Comune Simone will be taken to the prison in Messina and likely as not be shot, so think carefully about what you say.”
“Oh, but I have, Tenente. Rest assured, I have.” She smiles at him, a sad, reluctant smile that suggests he should understand she cannot do other than answer him honestly, even if that means putting herself in danger. “So, why don’t you first ask my father how he killed Comune Simone?”
The German officer looks on. “Yes, ask him.”
Enzo very suddenly looks nervous. He glances at Aldo, who very subtly shakes his head.
“I don’t think that would be the best way to play this, Mira. I would prefer to ask you.”
“No,” the officer interrupts. “Ask him.” He points at Enzo, lest anyone be in any doubt who he means.
“Yes, Tenente de la Grascia,” Mira says. “As much as it pains me to say it, for once I agree, kindly ask my father first.”
Caught between the rock of the German’s insistence and the hard place of Mira’s refusal to cooperate, Aldo sighs. “All right.” He turns to Enzo. “Please, Signor Ruggeri, please describe to us exactly how you murdered Comune Simone?”
Enzo gazes at his daughter, a look that reaches deep inside her and twists her stomach into a terrible knot.
“Go on, papà. I know you cannot know, so go on and tell them. How did Comune Simone die?”
Realising he has no alternative, he says, “With a knife to his heart.”
Mira gasps and rocks back in her chair. Then a thought dawns on her and she fixes Aldo with a look of contempt. “You told him. You told him just now, before we arrived.”
“No,” Aldo states, vehemently shaking his head. “Your father arrived only a moment before you, Mira; we did not have the time to discuss it and there is no way he can have read the report.”
“I don’t believe you,” she says. “He must have.” Then she turns her attention back to her father. “But how, papà? How can you know?”
“Because that was how it was done. How else would one kill a man like Comune Simone other than quickly?” Enzo looks at her, his expression coldly triumphant.
“But you can’t have, papà. You can’t have. You didn’t.”
“Mira, I don’t understand why you are so surprised and if you think you know better than me, then kindly tell us if a knife to the chest was his only wound.”
She looks amazed, bemused, bewildered, and then frowns in thought. “You can’t have, papà. You can’t have.”
Enzo pouts. “But Mira, as I have just asked, if you think you know better then please, why don’t you tell us what other wound did Comune Simone suffer when the life bled out of him in the same manner it bled out of Sottocapo Falanga. Come on, Mira, tell us.”
Like a child suspected of cheating at exams Mira looks from her father to the lieutenant, her eyes demanding their confidence, her hands outstretched in appeal. “What other wound? I don’t know. What other wound would one inflict on a man who has already paid for his sins with his life? I don’t know,” she screams. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Enzo moves to her side and, bending to wrap his arms around her, he hugs her and kisses her tenderly on her cheek. “No, you don’t know, Mira. The Tenente and the Hauptmann know because they saw Comune Simone’s body, didn’t you, gentlemen?”
“Yes, Signora Alberti,” Aldo replies, “we both know what your father means and I for one am greatly relieved that you don’t. That a woman could mutilate a corpse in such an abominable manner is unthinkable. So please, Signor Ruggeri, please tell us what further wound you inflicted on Comune Simone.”
Covering his daughter’s ears with his hands, Enzo Ruggeri turns to face Aldo and the German captain. “Why gentlemen, I cut out his tongue of course. What else does one do to a man who cannot keep his mouth shut?”
Chapter 25
“Where is your mother?” Aldo asks. They are standing in the piazza before the church.
“She is over there, talking with Signora Ganci.”
“How is she?”
“As you would expect, beside herself with fear.”
“Would it help if I spoke to her?”
Mira gazes up into the clear blue sky. “No, not right now. In fact, Aldo, I am surprised you have come to mass. Can you not tell by the way people look at you that if they were given the chance, they would probably put you up against a wall and shoot you?”
“If it is any consolation, I think they would be within their rights.” He takes her by her arm and steers her away from the congregation who soon crowd around them, glaring at the Lieutenant with undisguised loathing.”
“Look, Mira, please believe me that I will do everything within my power to see that your father is released. I have already sent a report to my senior officers explaining your father’s motives.”
“What was their reaction?”
“Oh, they told me in no uncertain terms that there could not be any mitigating factors that were worthy of consideration and that if I pressed them harder, I would be sent to Rome to face a disciplinary hearing.”
As they linger beneath the tall palm tree, she says, “People are strange, aren’t they? On Thursday, after they took the hostages to Messina, my father was their villain; and now that they have been released, he is their hero. Where has he been taken?”
“To the Carrubbara in Gazzi, in Messina.”
“Did he get there all right?”
“Yes, I checked last night. They managed to get him there before the first of the three air raids. The American bombers gave the city quite a pounding yesterday but, thankfully, the prison was not damaged.”
Mira quiets.
“I can understand that there is a great deal that bothers you, Mira. These are difficult times for everyone, but the situation your father has placed himself in is perilous to say the leas
t.”
“Aldo,” she says, gazing out at the still waters of the lagoon, “I have a confession to make.”
He lets go of her arm and steps back from her. “Mira, if it is a confession you need to make, you should have stayed behind in the church. Absolution is not mine to grant.”
“Mother of God!” she groans. “Absolution does not wash away sin. What one has done stays with one, and no amount of contrition or any number of Hail Marys can atone for what I am about to tell you.”
He looks deep into her eyes. “If it is that important, Mira, perhaps the priest should hear what you have to say.”
“No, Aldo, I have to tell you and only you, and when I have told you, you will understand why.”
“All right then, Mira, what is it that weighs so heavily on your conscience that you must tell a friend rather than God?”
She breathes deep. “Do you remember my surprise when my father admitted to murdering Comune Simone?”
“Mm, yes, I do. However, your father admitted only to mutilating the corpse of Comune Simone; at no time did he admit to killing him.”
She looks back at him, a guilt, a misgiving stark in the tightness of her cheeks and the furrow of her thick, dark eyebrows. “Yes, Aldo, you are right, he didn’t. And that’s because I murdered the Comune, not him.”
“Ah,” he exclaims, the poisoned chalice of her confidence now passed to him. “So that was what brought such confusion into your eyes. I wondered what disturbed you so.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“I am not,” he replies. “Should I be?”
“In a way, yes. When we went out to the café that Tuesday evening, when we met your friend Franz, you said you thought you knew me well enough to want to spend the rest of your life with me: if you thought you knew me that well, Aldo, did that mean you always knew me capable of murder?”
Constant Tides Page 33